Today we’d like to introduce you to Stephanie Hubbard.
Hi Stephanie , can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
As a survivor of a very turbulent and poverty riddled childhood I was blessed at 11 years old to be “hired” to work for free at a horse rental stable in Nashville that capitalized on tourists in exchange for a free horseback ride at the end of the day. I spent every formative weekend of my youth with those 30 horses and 30 ponies along with a group of girls who also wanted to live and breathe horses. We came from all walks of life and yet we were bound together by our singular love for these majestic creatures. As I careened into my teens eventually moving away those horses, those memories remained a huge part of my personality.
While I made it much longer than many of my peers, management changes at Riverwood dissolved that childhood utopia and I began to make far less responsible decisions on the weekends. Eventually dropping out of high school and waiting tables until deciding to return to get my GED in 1993 in Galesburg, Il. I recall the GED teacher asking me why I wanted to be a secretary when I could have a secretary instead. After earning the highest score in the programs history I was awarded a scholarship to Carl Sandburg College where I earned my AS in Computer Science in 1996. I went on to Western Illinois University changing my major to History with a Sociology minor as I realized I had a deep longing for understanding people and why we behave as we do. That desire stemmed from how lost I felt and the imposter syndrome that has plagued me throughout my life. Inside of me there has always been that scared little girl who walked to school down roads adults were afraid to travel.
Those experiences left me with CTPSD and Anxiety Disorder that wasn’t diagnosed until I had spent many years internalizing the feeling that I was less than for a myriad of reasons none of which had ever truly been in my control. I was just a child in an adults world. I had my first child in 1999 and wanted her childhood to be stable and sane and that had to begin with me. I had devoured self help books for years but after a late term miscarriage following the death of my aunt who had shared my love of horses I finally got down to the business of healing. Losing my aunt meant losing the place my horse lived as he stayed on her farm. I had already moved back home and sold my property in Illinois in order to buy her farm from probate to keep the horses I loved together in their home.
Throughout my life I have been blessed to have strong women supporting me from my mother and my aunts to my minister grandmother who had the first church in Nashville to be led by a female pastor in the late 1970s. She told me everyday that I could be do or have anything I wanted as long as I tried my best. I spent all Sundays and Wednesdays in the pews the first decade of my life which combined with my personal experience gave me a strong sense of faith that I was not alone despite my environmental challenges.
I worked a bit on my masters at Western Kentucky University until juggling mom life with work and school led me to devote the next two decades to raising my beloved daughters Raven and Rena. Over that time I opened the farm to many horses in need and was able to support these activities without help from the community.
In 2017 I was diagnosed with a tumor in the lining of my brain- a meningioma that began to grow rapidly forcing me to choose between brain radiation and brain surgery. I opted for cyber-knife radiation and thus ended my corporate career more with a whimper than a bang. I am internally driven, a by product of my near constant anxiety and my therapist suggested that I would not benefit from sitting idly. This led to the birth of Hill Haven in 2019. As we welcomed teens who are struggling with self harm and suicidal ideation onto the farm to hang out with the horses who all had horror stories from their own past to share, something miraculous began to happen. The horses gave these children the confidence to face their daily lives. As you can imagine horses are not cheap to keep or maintain in good health so I decided to honor my grandmothers legacy after she was diagnosed with dementia and had given up her ministry by opening Hill Haven Chapel. Donations to the farm for use of the chapel for elopements and micro-weddings supports the horses who are the foundation of our peer to peer and family to family emotional support groups where people of all ages come together in small groups to share their stories and to learn emotional regulation and a place where many feel safe for the first time.
I am currently enrolled in state certification classes for peer to peer mental health coaching. I also donate time to NAMI the National Alliance for Mental Illness and am training to be Lead Presenter for Ending the Silence a program that goes to local middle and high schools encouraging students to reach out for help and to share stories of overcomers. I am helping spread the program to Macon Co TN as currently they are not included due to not having volunteers to cover the area.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I cannot say it has been a smooth road but I can say it has been an adventure. This little girl from the projects met a sitting US President, obtained degrees, created wonderful empathetic daughters, saved dozens of horses and has helped many people understand the turbulence of mental illness and mental health. Was it easy? Absolutely not but in the end it has all been worth it.
I mentioned the imposter syndrome that leads me to question my worthiness of the blessings bestowed on me but that also competed with an above average IQ so logic and emotions were often at polar opposites in my psyche and it has taken my entire lifetime for me to begin to feel safe. If I can help just one person or one animal to feel safe with me then I feel as though all the paths that led me here were sacred and should be honored and not dismissed. Without being a hungry child in the homeless rescue mission in Nashville at seven years old I would not be the person I am today. Without facing sexism and oddly even racism for having the audacity to be brunette and tanned from my life outdoors then I would not be able to speak for the disenfranchised as I do today. There is truth in the old saying “It takes one to know one.” I use my voice as a middle aged white woman to speak for the poor kid that I was because I wish there had been more people trying to solve the societal issues that led to my displacement and distress as a child.
That is not an easy path to walk and often has pitted me against contemporary norms and led to societal blowback. It is not easy to speak for the poor and oppressed as our nation has been well and truly brainwashed into blaming these people more than helping them. I am but one poor kid who made it out of the system designed to keep me in it. I realize this is a testament as much to the women who lifted me up as it is to my own character and abilities.
I struggle with bad days from the tumor and resulting radiation that can consist of crippling headaches, dizziness and nausea but the key is to focus on the good days not the bad ones knowing that this too shall pass and it is a blessing to still be alive and able to devote my life to service of people and animals.
There is never enough time in the day on a farm and its vital to take time to do things outside the comfort zone which I have not really excelled at. But it is how I wound up enrolled in a couple of local line dance lessons which have helped a lot with my balance and confidence as temporal lobe damage can throw off balance when moving.
I am still learning to love myself and teaching others to love themselves has been an outstanding part of that struggle. What can one do with a lifetime of pain other than use it to help others?
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
Wedding venues are a dime a dozen in the middle Tennessee area ranging from full immersion weekends of luxury to the simplest I Do ceremonies held in backyards. What sets us apart is that when you choose Hill Haven to start your life together you are starting your life of service by helping us to help others.
What sets us apart from other venues is that we are not a for profit business and choosing us is not just enriching a business owner but is instead enriching the community.
Our rustic chapel is the definition of quaint with the wagon wheel benches and my grandmothers original podium from her church she started 50 years ago.
I spent several years with a monetized hobby in photography and have been able to curate this farm into natural areas that made remarkable photographs these couples will treasure for a lifetime.
The horses are right next door to the chapel and attend every wedding sniffing guests down for treats and basking in over the fence pets while they pose for pictures.
We are primarily a senior horse sanctuary and the horses work with people in the community who are struggling but we cannot do that without the donations that come in for the use of the chapel.
We live for and by the community as we are all trying to help prevent more tragedies like the teen suicide epidemic by fostering an escape for kids who don’t feel like they fit in anywhere else.
Teens were where the focus began but the ministry expanded into adult grief groups and we combined our love of art into the groups as well as the powerful energies of the horses crafting a space that is a healing conduit and safe place for everyone to share what they love and what they struggle with.
After decades of struggling to find my place in the world I know now that I am exactly where I am supposed to be and the universe will send the people to me that I can help will show me resources to offer to the people that I can’t help. That isn’t failure, its discernment. That was difficult for me to initially accept as I felt compelled to try and “save” everyone when in fact all we can really do is walk beside each other on the path. As my oldest daughter taught me, one is not ordered to pour from an empty cup because if your cup is full it will naturally overflow.
We take in old and disabled horses that the world considers disposable and share their stories with people who feel the same. There is then a transformation as both horse and human learn they are both enough just as they are.
Our wedding chapel can host an elopement of bride and groom only or we can host micro-weddings with up to 50 guests and have packages including the chapel and reception hall fully decorated with officiant and photographer included for unbeatable pricing as the chapel isn’t there to make profit but to allow us to make lifetime changes in the people and animals who find their way to Hill Haven.
Our most recent intake the newly named Ruby whose name at birth was Precious Jewel but she had been reduced to merely being called B to match her brand on her left hip. Typically we dont change older horses names but we felt she deserved the dignity of name and it ends in the same B sound making it easier for her to recognize. She is a 13 year old mare who had been bred for 10 consecutive years finally miscarrying the last foal yielding her a net worth of zero in the horse world as she had only been used for breeding because of her genetic disposition to have babies in the coveted Tobiano coloring. She lived her entire life having only been led and bred with no other training. We paid $300 to save her from enduring more years of her life as nothing but an incubator for profits for unscrupulous owners. She required $864 for her first combined farrier and vet bill in April to try begin the process of restoring her hooves. They have splayed out like a platypus from years of neglect, its a true wonder how she managed to carry any foals on these severely crippled hooves. She will need the visits monthly for the first year moving slowly to every 6-8 weeks on the projected time table of restoring her hooves to as normal as they will ever be on a three year plan. Without donations we simply would not be able to help her.
Sharing our farm with people on the same mission to help make the world better is an honor and a privilege and helping each other is a calling. If you are called to donate or volunteer please reach out to use via our social media or our website or by emailing hillhavenchapel@gmail.com.
I also write a weekly column called Sunny Side Up in The Portland Sun highlighting positive people, places and events in the community to encourage people to come out of their devices and experience the natural world. We are reducing our own experiences into smaller and smaller devices while the beautiful big world is ignored and this column is meant to entice people to interact again.
Networking and finding a mentor can have such a positive impact on one’s life and career. Any advice?
I believe in collaboration over competition and have found that reaching out to compliment the people I admire has led me to build some fabulous relationships with other helpers in the community.
Being genuine and authentic is extremely important to me and I try to carry that energy into every exchange.
All businesses must compete to stay afloat but that doesn’t have to be done in any underhanded way – its my opinion that it should be about competing to give excellent service and lifting up your fellow vendors and helping to build their businesses and support their dreams while following your own unique path and being true to yourself.
Become comfortable with being uncomfortable and reach out to tell those you hold dear or recognize as a standard or ideal you want to maintain and start conversations. That simple act of bravery can make you feel less alone while navigating life and business.
Join groups of like minded people and let yourself naturally gravitate to those people who are welcoming and inviting and understand that not everyone will have the bandwidth to help but that a surprising number will respond and allow you to pick their brains for the things they found most helpful when starting out.
Pricing:
- Weekday Elopements starting at $250
- Chapel + Reception hall for up to 50 guests for under $5000 with officiant and photographer plus dinner and dancing!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.hillhavenchapel.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hill.haven.chapel/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HillsofHopeHealing
